The Prebleans went to one knee before the Prince. He smiled and signaled them to rise. “Be at ease, my friends,” he said, in a trained orator’s voice. “Soon the night of Confed tyranny will be lifted—as the sun rises, so will a new, independent city of Preble.”
Several of the Preblean conspirators seemed inclined to answer the Prince’s speech with ones of their own. Esmond was relieved to see that Enry wasn’t one of them.
“Your Highness, welcome to your loyal city,” he said. “This way, please—the garrison doesn’t patrol, but they’re not blind and somebody will alert them if we don’t move quickly.”
The Strikers had formed up rapidly, and with as little noise as five hundred armored men could when moving on flagstones in the dark. Esmond fell in at their head, beside the banner and the commander’s runners. Donnuld Grayn grinned at him out of the side of his mouth.
“Think the Prince’ll screw things up really bad?” he said, sotto voce.
“Hopefully, not until we’ve taken the town,” Esmond said. “By the way, I wasn’t joking about taking the balls of anyone who starts chasing coin or skirt.”
Grayn nodded. “You’ll have to take ’em off the man dead, after I’m through with him,” he said. “Probably will be one or two idiots—keeping hired soldiers in line in an enemy town, at night, ain’t going to be easy.”
“This isn’t an enemy town. It’s supposed to be our town, and we’re taking it from the Confeds.”
Grayn’s grin grew wide. “That’s not a distinction your average trooper is real interested in,” he said. “But they’ll understand my boot up their backside—and don’t worry, sir, they’re not going to upset a good thing. You’ve won us a couple of hard fights now; if you say paint ourselves green and hop around like kermitoids, most of the men’ll do it.”
* * *
“They’ve got the gates open?” Donnuld said incredulously.
“Wouldn’t have believed it either, if I hadn’t seen it myself,” Esmond said.
Enry Sharbonow coughed discreetly; he was a discreet man, middle-aged and slim, with a pointed beard and a small gold ring through his nose; the cutlass at his side looked to have seen some use, though.
“We arranged a party for the commandant and his officers,” he said. “As proof of our loyalty to the Confederation, you might say. They’re all away at the Town Guildhall right now. And we sent in a wagonload of wine and roast pigs and fairly high-priced girls so the men could have a good time too. Some of the girls are getting a bonus, and they saw to the door.”
“Brilliant.” Esmond grinned. “I hope you’ll do as much for my men.”
“Oh, of course, excellent sir,” Enry said. “And we won’t spike the wine with cane spirit, either.”
Esmond laughed aloud. Colorless and tasteless, but if you tried to drink it like wine . . .
“All right,” he said, unfolding a square of reed-paper. “Donnuld, Makin, as far as I can see there’s nothing to prevent us going straight in the front gate. The barracks are in a square around a paved court with a well, the usual arrangement; Confed regulars on these two sides, this is the command block, and here’s where the light infantry are stationed. Half of the men are out in the square, eating and boozing, and half are back in their barracks screwing their brains out, or vice versa. They’ve been at it for a couple of hours, more or less. Makin, you bottle up the light infantry. We’ll try and get them to surrender. Donnuld, you take care of the men in the square. I’ll secure the barracks and the headquarters.”
It was no use trying to get Confed regulars to give up, unless they bashed their heads in first. That was one of the reasons Confed armies usually inflicted heavier losses than they suffered, even when they lost—they rarely ran away, and it was in rout and pursuit that the real killing was done. One could spear a running man in the back while chasing him, but he couldn’t fight back.
He looked up at the Preblean conspirator. “What about the commandant and his staff?”